The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Amazon’s TV series is back with another season after a very criticize season one, with scores under 7/10 and only praise by critics but the audience had a very different opinion, we are back to the world of elves, humans, and other magical beings we meet both familiar characters and new difficulties. The show continues from where it was left with Halbrand being exposed as Sauron and the making of the first rings of the power. For someone like me who have not read any of the books and only watch the movies the series is obviously very interesting but even me can identify things that don't fit with the books, or at least look too modern ish to be part of the original story, most of them are ways of thinking and act rather than looks. The first episode almost says it all that instead of constant action we are going to get a lot of politics, internal conflicts and the shadow of evil with Sauron playing trickster around everyone else, reminds me of Loki in the MCU. On season two I would expect characters to get develop way more as in season one we had a very slow pace at times that turn the series boring and redundant, probably making the audience fell its just too much talk and no action, characters like the Stranger, Sauron making his way into Mordor but before setting everything up to corrupt middle Earth and finally we got Galadriel who was tricked by Sauron and that's going to be a very very heavy weight to deal with, he is already inside her mind.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18177528/
- Platform: Amazon Prime Video
The Return of Sauron
A New Beginning in Forodwaith
The episode begins with a blast and takes us to the beginning of the Second Age in Forodwaith, the Northern Waste. Here, we have another actor portraying Sauron attempting to dominate the orcs, only for them to ignore him, he talks about a higher power, something bigger than muscle power, the only power that Orks now; he calls it the “Power of the Unseen World” and I think this put him in a position to abuse others psychologically, not a term that fits on this kind of story but again playing the role of a trickster to make his way in. But the orcs are no buying it and not willing to follow anybody else after Morgoth their leader only mention in season one, but what really shut down Sauron speech is saying "many Orks will die", I don't know but as far as I remember Sauron use to rule with an iron fist during the movies, not sure were the series get the "Orks life matter" sht. Yet the orcs are under Adar’s leadership, Adar betray Sauron the moment they were going to crown him and all the Orks start jump him and stab him until his body is dead, not before his blood drains within the rocky floor going deep into the mountain. It's not his end as his blood eventually morph into a type of symbiote who starts to feed in what ever it could find and took him very long to take the human body again, from what I could find online this is a process that takes him very very very long we talking years not sure how many and every time they kill him takes him longer, in the meantime Orks live another day.Sauron's Rebirth and Return
On season one we remember how Galadriel jump ship on her way to Valinor because she felt her task was not over and Sauron was still on Middle Earth, oh boy the irony its Sauron on his human shape who rescue her. Season two explains more the Sauron story of how he got to that point, the moment he recover his human shape starts walking until he meets a group of refugees, its quite interesting some times Sauron could sound like he is confuse or even sorry for what he has done in the past, its the case when he talks to an old man about second chances, saying that he knows what he has done in the past very bad things, right here red flag, I doubt this is the same Sauron from the books or movies, although I'm not going to read the books so I will let it slide and continue to enjoy the series until I can.They all go into a ship that takes them deep into the sea, trying to escape from the Ork army who are moving very fast until across Earth, one night while while Sauron was at the ship, it got attacked by what look like Sea Serpent, I couldn't find the name for this monsters but under water they didn't attack Sauron, before the ship got destroy Sauron takes this pouch from this old man who happens to be a descendant of the Southland kings servants, he latter on use it to disguise Galadriel, how could this all be part of his plan? , the rings I get it but the pouch thing?
The entire scene is about Sauron getting back his human form, slowly but surely, all the time and effort it took him and now on his way to Middle Earth and get everyone against each other so he can take over everything on his way, sound like a very intelligent person who has everything very well calculated, something that will appeal to a large audience.
Elven Politics and the Three Rings
The Debate Over the Rings' Use
The elf side of the series sometimes is boring let me tell you, they playing the politics the entire day, Galadriel screw up multiple times but still is this almost rebel soldier going rouge, King Gil Galad always trying to put his foot down on things that are abvious and no body listen to Elrond.In one corner there is Elrond who is friends with Galadriel until he gets frustrated because of her acts and he is not a fan of Gil Galad although recognize him as king, if it was for Elrond he would not share the same place with them and would rather work with Calebrimbor as much as he could, doing what he loves.
Gil Galad starts to accept that they might have no other option than use the rings to try to establish the balance so their sacred there golden tree, Laurelin can stay alive, there is one at the Dwarfs mountain that is probably alive because of all the Mithril in the mountains, the rare metal that Durbin gave Elrond to create the rings.
Lastly but probably most important is Galadriel, if Elrond and Gil Galad are the matches and gasoline, Galadriel is the fire and explosion. This women elf is a predicament for herself, she was right in the fact that they had to use the rings but at the same time blind by power because Elrond did warm them about this been Sauron plan but again she is blind because she thinks this power can help them get Sauron, she just keep pushing in all the wrong directions just to proof she is right
At the end Elrond efforts are just for nothing, Galdriel, Gil Galad and a third elf Cirdan put on the rings, everyhing goes dandy and there is this bright light coming from the Laurelin that at some point I really thought everything was going to go south and it would turn into ashes, it was so bright it almost turn red before turning bright as a star. Elrond was right but they not going to listen to him at a point where is do or die for the Laurelin, if the tree die they had to go and Elf consider themself the protectors of Middle Earth, they really take it personal like they HAVE the responsibility, while Men, Orks and Dwarfs are nothing to them, they no relatives no nothing.
Sauron's Machinations in Mordor
Infiltrating Adar's Camp
ok, let’s return to Sauron because this man has been quite productive. he has successfully be captured and brought into Adar’s camp in Mordor. now, at first, you would probably think, oh, this is not going well for ol’ Sauron, but if you know this character at all, you know he is always scheming.Sauron, still pretending to be Halbrand, is being quite relaxed. he is just letting himself be bullied, faking that he is so powerless and vulnerable. but you know that he is thinking hard, his wheels are spinning in his head. He is assessing the situation and thinking to himself of how he can leverage this to his benefit.
it’s also very memorable when Sauron is imprisoned with this huge and evil warg. now most people would be terrified, but Sauron? He is just waiting for the opportunity to come so that he can unleash himself. he takes some food to draw the attention of the warg and then, pow, he starts speaking black speech, which is the language of the orcs as you’d learn from your Middle-earth linguistics. all of a sudden he’s got this vicious beast under his thumb. it is only a small scene, but this small scene illustrates just how strong and intelligent Sauron actually is.
Playing Both Sides
I'm still amaze me how Sauron get to the places he needs to be without him moving towards this certain direction, say for example how he was there at sea to meet with Galadriel, then goes to battle with her and latter on capture by the Orks and taken to Mordor, Orks thought he was a king they just defeated. When he gets to Adar camp no body knows he is Sauron, for Adar and the Orks he is just another human but again Sauron out smart everyone making them think he knows where Sauron is, where is this great sorcerer who is the only threat to Adar and the Orks. Its fun to watch Sauron manipulate everyone around him.
Its funny how Sauron strategy plays out at Adar camp offering to locate the sorcerer for him in exchange to let him go, Haldra says he can get in contact with the elves and pretend to get their help to defeat Sauron while Adar gather his troops and attack them, but none of this happen because Sauron plan is to get everyone against everyone while he is just sitting pretty waiting for the world to go in flames so he can gather the pieces, probably why he will keep changing his shape and pretending to be someone else, a friendly neighbor.
The episode does give a lot of backdrop to Sauron story and his plan, how everything started for him with his revenge against Adar and try to trick everyone at the same time, its like the series is trying to fix everything that was wrong with season one in terms of story telling and patching holes in the plot. This is Sauron 2.0 who is pushing other to make mistakes and each of the actions turn into a sequence of consequences and events that will lead to deciding the fate of Middle Earth. On this story we not only have the bad guy but he is trying to get back his army by making it suffer first to head bump with others and essentially he single hand will almost destroy Middle Earth to the point that at least Orks would have to join him. I'm sure this entire story has been change an adapt to what the series think its their target audience that I extremely doubt is the part of the audience that geeks out with Lord of The Rings, still very entertaining until it gets to the desert, Ill talk about the desert on next recap, cant make this a +5k words recap.
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